World

Today Parliament has been recalled to discuss and vote on the UK response to the alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria. We now know that we will not be called upon to authorise military action today – that vote will probably be held next week. But the Motion before the House tonight is clearly a stepping stone towards that action, and MPs are being asked to endorse the principle of military intervention in paragraph three of the Motion, which states that: ‘(This House)…agrees that a strong humanitarian response is required from the international community and that this may, if necessary, require military action that is legal, proportionate and focused on

The events in Syria are distressing. The pictures and reports of an alleged chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians with hundreds of dead and thousands suffering horrifying symptoms is alarming. The news footage is deeply disturbing and upsetting. It is natural to want to punish whoever did this – to demonstrate that the civilised world will not stand idly by while people are gassed indiscriminately. But because we are a civilised nation we need to stay calm, step back and establish what really happened. We need a thorough investigation and we need the facts. Not the ones that fit what we want to think or those that suit an agenda.

David Cameron spoke to Barack Obama yesterday about the situation in Syria. A Number 10 spokesman gave the following read-out of the call: ‘They are both gravely concerned by the attack that took place in Damascus on Wednesday and the increasing signs that this was a significant chemical weapons attack carried out by the Syrian regime against its own people. The UN Security Council has called for immediate access for UN investigators on the ground in Damascus. The fact that President Assad has failed to co-operate with the UN suggests that the regime has something to hide. ‘They reiterated that significant use of chemical weapons would merit a serious response

Say this for George Galloway: every time you think he cannot sink any lower he finds new ways to surprise you. His latest contribution to Press TV, Iran’s propaganda station, speaks for itself. Parody is pointless. Given his history and his paymasters, we would expect him to defend the Assad regime in Syria. Even so, under-estimating his ability to sniff out the true villains is never sensible. Here’s his “analysis” of the use of chemical weapons in Syria: “If there’s been any use of nerve gas it’s the rebels that used it. […] If there has been a use of chemical weapons it was al-Qaeda who used chemical weapons. Who

When he was still a Presidential candidate in 2008, Barack Obama evoked memories of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan by addressing Europeans from Berlin. In what was then the largest audience of his campaign, around 200,000 people gathered to hear Obama ask, ‘Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, or the voter in Zimbabwe? Will we give meaning to the words “never again” in Darfur?’ Now into his second term, those are the very people Obama has betrayed throughout his presidency. Iranian liberals were left unsupported during the Green Revolution in 2009 which challenged Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; ethnic violence orchestrated

Always remember mornings like these, the next time police officers and politicians demand more powers to protect us from terrorism. They always sound so reasonable and so concerned for our welfare when they do. For who wants to be blown apart? But the state said its new powers to intercept communications would be used against terrorists. They ended up using them against fly tippers. Now the police are using the Terrorism Act against the partner of a journalist who is publishing stories the British and American governments would rather keep quiet. The detention of David Miranda at Heathrow is a clarifying moment that reveals how far Britain has changed for the

On A-level results day it was inevitable really. Of the roughly 14,000 applicants not to have received a place at Oxford this year, one of them, Alastair Herron, has done astonishingly well in his A-levels, receiving 7 A* grades. He’s done so well in fact, that something fishy must be going on. How could Oxford reject such a brilliant student, thundered BBC Radio Ulster’s Stephen Nolan. ‘On what planet do you turn someone down with seven A*s?’ Presumably a planet in which over 17,000 pupils, most of them brilliant, are competing for 3,500 undergraduate places. What Nolan, not to mention John Prescott who is also on the case, fails to

Whose side is Vladimir Putin on? It’s a question worth asking, because of late the Kremlin has come closer and closer to the tipping point between obstreperousness and outright hostility towards the West. Last week Barack Obama cancelled a September summit with Putin after Russia offered asylum to the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. But in truth the Snowden affair is only the latest and most trivial of a long and growing list of issues where Russia and the US are on radically opposite sides. Syria probably tops the list — at least in terms of urgency and human cost. Russia has offered diplomatic support to the Assad regime

Speak to members of the Muslim Brotherhood and you get a sense of just how imperilled they feel. Ever since Mohammed Mursi was overthrown, members of the group have come to believe they’re engaged in a fight for the Muslim Brotherhood’s existence. Indeed, there is a popular perception among Brotherhood members that the entire movement’s trajectory will be determined by what transpires in Egypt now. Western governments have traditionally indulged themselves with the fantasy of a stratified Brotherhood consisting of ‘extreme’ and ‘moderate’ elements. This view confuses strategic pragmatism with ideology. Focus on the group’s core beliefs and what you’re left with is a unified movement striving for the same

Let’s hear it for Nigeria, which has just joined the space race. The country plans to launch a rocket by 2028, although nobody has explained where the rocket will be heading. It is a legal requirement, I suspect, for all countries which receive vast amounts of aid from Britain to start pinging rockets around the universe. Perhaps the Nigerians are hopeful of colonising Jupiter, or the ghostly moons of Uranus – Oberon, say, or Umbriel. Both satellites would undoubtedly benefit from some warm-hearted Nigerian vibrancy. We’re giving the Nigerians more than £300m next year, which should pay for the elastic band, at least. Our previous donations were revealed to have

The ‘routine’ deployment of HMS Illustrious and two bustling frigates to Gibraltar, en route to the Gulf of Aden, has excited the morning papers. And the evacuation of the American consulate in Lahore gets lots of attention, following the closure of consulates and embassies across the Middle East last weekend. Neither story is the most interesting defence news item today. The Telegraph’s Con Coughlin reports that a huge defence contract could see the establishment of a permanent British military presence in the Gulf. He writes: ‘If a deal can be agreed – and detailed negotiations have been under way for more than a year – then the six states (Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE, Qatar,

Carla, my Italian wife, has a small house in a little town on the Adriatic near Ravenna called Lido di Dante, right next to one of the last unspoilt beaches in Italy. But we cannot go to this spectacular beach because even though it is una spiaggia libera (open to all and free) and therefore di tutti (everyone’s) it is infested with nudists and their related sub-species: guardoni (voyeurs), scambisti (wife-swappers), group-sex freaks, transsexuals, bisexuals — plus several other creatures yet to be classified by scientists. Needless to say Dante’s Beach, which is named after the poet who died in Ravenna in 1321, has got a bit of a reputation